It was with some anticipation that we of TIT Towers journeyed to the town of Warrington in Cheshire for the inaugural RISC OS North show being held at the Village Hotel there (sadly not in a Lotus Super Seven S2, but neither being chased by giant white balloons, so clouds, silver linings etc). With the sad demise of the long running Wakefield show (which for the last three years had been held in Bradford, so another chance for the former West Wing star Bradford Wakefield gag to be exhumed for one last huzzah), RISC OS North found itself much like the titular space station in Babylon 5 - RISC OS's last best hope for a show north of London (by a matter of 8 minutes or so compared to the South West Show, according to Google). So how was it?
Well, pretty bloody good, to put it succinctly. I'm not going to repeat the contents of the rather excellent report from The Icon Bar, nor am I going to cover the four theatre talks in much detail - Mark has already done that here, as well as some nice photo coverage, so aside from the top image of the Soft Rock stand, there's no other imagery in this post - please click the link to TIB. An aside: if you want to keep up to date with all things RISC OS, not only do we have The Icon Bar, but also Riscository as well, so bookmark them to stay in the know. The ROOL forums are another font of knowledge that deserves your attention. What does follow, however, are my thoughts, impressions and random musings on the show and the weekend in general.
With TIT Towers location in deepest, darkest County Durham (north by north west at the cathedral, if you hit the old steelworks, you've gone too far, definitely DO NOT turn left at Albuquerque!), it was something of a near three hour drive to Warrington, including a nice little stop off at Kirby Stephen for refreshments on the way, and then a quiet Thursday night spent at The Waterside pub. The attached hotel to the Waterside was our base for the weekend, and just a couple of minutes walk from the Village Hotel itself - and much more reasonable value for rooms, too.
The Friday was spent seeing what Warrington had to offer and, should we return (see below), we'll be making a quicker beeline to the Warrington Market, where numerous small food businesses are located along with a large seating area. The food we did have to go was lovely, so plenty of other options to try again in the future. As for the town itself, not a bad little place, and although some of it looks like Consett with the charm, none of it approached the level of Stanley without it. If you know, you know. Friday evening saw us back at the Waterside pub where the first points were scored on the "They're in with the RISC OS crowd" bingo card. Next year, we'll have an Observers book(let) ready.
Saturday dawned and, after a frankly disappointing hotel breakfast (yet their evening meals were really good, so go figure), we wandered to the show venue. Admittance started at 10.30, and we were soon wandering the stalls. Conversations were had, some money changed hands, and it was great to catch up with familiar faces as well as talk to new ones too. It really is a friendly community should you wish to attend future events.
This year, the hardware purchase was a RISCOSbits DIY Three, as my near six year old PiHard began pining for the fjords a couple of months back. I'm looking forward to the build process as well as giving the new casing something of a funky paint job.
Other pick ups included the Drag N' Drop back catalogue, Soft Rock Software's revised Software Collection, the latest title from Amcog Games, Morphix, and paying my membership dues for the Wakefield Club. A t-shirt from RISC OS Open covered the last of the cash purchases, and the only other item collected that day was the brand new issue of Archive magazine from its stand, manned this year by Collin from Samcoupe.com. It was nice to have a catch up, despite the very last minute delivery of the issues (about 9am, I believe he said), and he also had some top of the counter SAM coupe goods for sale - issues of Quazar, key rings, a framed ASIC, and he was more than happy to show off some new hardware too.
One thing I didn't pick up from the charity stall was a huge back collection of Archive issues, and although the appearance of an Iyonix was also a temptation, there simply isn't room at TIT Towers to do it justice. Opposite that stall was a lovely display by the North West Computer Museum. We visited (and donated kit) there last year, and although we had no time this year, quite a few of the exhibitors had either taken advantage of its proximity to have a gander before the show, or were planning to go the next day. Warnings were passed on about the rather generous cheese toasties we "experienced" last year. Seriously, there was a lot of cheese!
The layout of the show was dictated by the venue, with a dividing wall blocking off most of the exhibitors from the theatre area, which in the previous venue was is a separate room. This worked pretty well, but there was the slight quibble that if you were sat at the back rows of the theatre seating, there was a bit of noise overspill from the show area. A minor issue and one that was fed back to the organisers. They have thoughts for a show next year which will see that disappear so, yeah, that was my only criticism of the show.
Everything else was spot on, and credit to Richard, Andrew and everyone else involved in putting this show together at relatively short notice. It was well organised and seemed to have a buzz that made the whole day feel even better. As you may have noted from the above, there are plans for a show at the same venue next year, and probably around the same time of year. Richard explained their reasoning clearly in his theatre chat, and to be honest, the small window between the winter weather and the wedding season is perfectly suited for a northern RISC OS show. What I can say is that if there is a RISC OS North, I will happily make the journey. It's a worthy successor to the Wakefield shows of lore and long may there continue to be a northern event!
There was also, however, talk of the London show at the end of October, and whilst it would make for a lovely trip (as well as seeing the capital because apart from a trio of wargames shows at the Excel pre-Covid, I haven't been to the capital proper for some twenty seven years, and there's a lot of cool stuff to see - the priority, obviously, would be the RISC OS show). I'll look at the logistics to see if that's a go-er, but in the meantime, it's just good to know that the UK has two RISC OS shows well spaced both geographically and in the calendar, and if you can make it, there's always the RISC OS eXperience in The Netherlands in May.
RISC OS is still a fun and funky hobbyist OS for people to use, and as long as you are aware of its limitations, there's no reason not to give it a try if you want to. Maybe the Moonshots Initiative will pick up support to secure the future of the OS in a 64-bit world (The Register covered that as well), but regardless of that, there has never been a better time than the present to dive in. You'll find the majority of the movers and shakers in the RISC OS world listed on the RISCOS North show website here.
